Each flight log entry usually
represents a launch or test day, and describes the
events that took place.
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Long Rocket

We've had a bit of a break from rockets
over the last month as we've had family
visiting from overseas and with the school
holidays we took the opportunity to go down
to visit Tasmania for just over a week.
Tasmania was amazing and we got to do lots
of fun stuff and see lots of wild animals
and the rain forests.

This last weekend was another NSWRA
launch opportunity and so we brought along
some older rockets. The weather conditions
were perfect with virtually no wind and blue
skies early, though later some nice puffy
clouds turned up. We didn't have a specific
plan on what we wanted to launch, so we
progressively assembled longer and longer
rockets on the day.

We flew a couple of flights with the jet
foaming spacer, and then as the rocket got
longer (and heavier) we decided to switch to water only in
order to generate more thrust off the pad.

The foam flights were very slow off the
pad but without any wind they kept going
vertically, though they spiralled a bit. We
used a maximum 2L of water even in the
longest rocket in order to obtain enough
acceleration with a small nozzle.

Because the rocket was so tall when set
up on the pad, there was no way we could arm
it, (didn't think we would need the ladder)
so we attached the trigger string and armed
the deployment mechanism before we put
the rocket on the pad.

All 4 flights were successful and had
good landings. The longest rocket bent
slightly in the middle when it landed.

There were some really good pyro flights
on the day as well with a couple of H
motors, an H hybrid along with a handful of
G motors going up. Congratulations to David
B. for getting his L1 certification with a
perfect flight. It was also great to meet
Robert Brand in person and see some new
faces launching on the day.

Here is a
highlights video from the day:

Macquarie University Astronomy Open
Night

This upcoming weekend NSWRA has a stand
again at the Mac Uni Astronomy Open Night.
This was a great event last year with lots
of people turning up. We are going to bring
a couple of our rockets for display as well.
The club is also going to try to do a static
motor firing on the night. We did similar
firings of small motors at the Sydney
Observatory earlier in the year, but this
time we are going to fire a G64. These are
nice and loud and produce lots of flame and
smoke. This one will be interesting to see
how many little kids we'll scare. :)